


On the winds of war, I bravely Fly

by RyreValast



Category: RWBY
Genre: Alternate Universe - Space, Character Death, F/F, Space Battles
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-07-28
Updated: 2020-08-05
Packaged: 2021-03-06 05:35:30
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 2,330
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25578172
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/RyreValast/pseuds/RyreValast
Summary: For two hundred years the Atlesian Imperium has kept the peace in the Remnant sector and now it is gone. A new power has risen in its place and it pursues the last princess of the imperial house relentlessly but across the border in the Star kingdom of Vale salvation lies if she can reach it. In the kingdom few recognise the coming storm but those that do have done what they can to prepare and first into the fight will be the men and woman of Vale's untested aerospace force. Two young woman, one a princess of a fallen empire the other a pilot caught in her mothers shadow, shall be blown together and maybe just maybe they will change the course of history.
Relationships: Ruby Rose/Weiss Schnee
Comments: 4
Kudos: 22





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Here is something a little different from my other work, it should be noted all characters are over the age of 20. Enjoy.

_24th March 2438_  
_Remnant sector_  
_Former Imperial space/_  
_Peoples Republic Space_  
_System RD-404-17_

Weiss lurched forward in her seat as the deck seemed to buck beneath her. The shock-wave of a proximity torpedo detonation washed over the battered ship and the compensators were momentarily overpowered. Only her restraining harness kept her from falling out of her seat, though it dug into her shoulders through the ship suit and combat uniform. Alarms blared in the background as fresh damage reports flooded into the bridge before the lights flickered again this time as the overworked shields struggled to disperse the energy rounds from the enemy’s main battery.

As Weiss sat back again stamping down hard on the momentary panic of the near miss and she glanced around at the bridge crew noticing they were hunched over their consoles, displaying an almost desperate professionalism of a crew who no longer believed they would live to see another day but refusing to give in. Her gaze moved to the holographic plot at the centre of the bridge which stubbornly continued to display the nightmare she was trapped in. The Battlecruiser INS Darkwing was at its centre and in escort were a pair of light cruisers, but behind the Darkwing was the doggedly pursuing enemy ship and she...she was a battleship. Ordinarily the Darkwing could have easily outrun her but damage inflicted to the ships engines had severely limited her acceleration rate to the point that the enemy was able to match them, perhaps even slightly outpace them.

This particular battleship had been waiting for them in system, which meant either the traitors had enough battleships to cover every possible route to their destination or, more likely, that they had been betrayed. It didn’t matter either way she supposed, they were stuck in the firing envelope of a battleship unable to outrun, outmanoeuvre or outfight her. For the last month the Darkwing and her steadily shrinking list of consorts had been in and out of combat; slowly creeping through backwater systems like this one and now here they were so close to their goal and yet the steadily shrinking noose around their necks seems to have finally been pulled tight. More energy rounds slammed into the shields and Weiss’s train of thought was cut off as a command cut across the background din.

“Damage report!” the Kapitan barked

“Sir the aft tracking arrays have been disabled and point defence groups charlie and delta have been severely degraded. No new hull breeches but multiple power relays have blown.” one of the bridge crew snapped out.

The Kapitan nodded once “Damage control teams are to prioritise those tracking arrays, we can't afford to remain blind to our aft, Helm rotate the ship as necessary to keep our remaining point defences pointed at the incoming, Tactical I don’t want another near miss like the last, nothing else gets through!”. A chorus of aye sirs rang out as the Kapitan pulled on his headset and spoke into it. “ Engineering Status report. I see. Is there any...no. Damn” pulling off his headset he glanced back at Weiss, who gazed grimly back, before facing forward again. “We need to-”.

“Sir priority comm from the Diamond. She and Shield have turned to face the enemy and will delay them as long as possible.” The comms officer Interrupted. On the Holo Display the comm message was already playing out as the two cruisers icons came about before deccelerating towards the enemy.

The Kapitan seemed to freeze for an impossibly long second before sagging in his Seat. “Very well, wish them godspeed and good hunting. Helm Maintain your course and prepare to initiate the hyperdrive as soon as you cross the shift line”. Putting his headset back on he began to speak rapidly to the engineering officer on the other end.

Weiss felt the blood in her veins turn to ice, those two cruisers had effectively committed suicide. The two cruisers would never be able to beat the battleship by themselves. Even with Darkwing they would never be able to match that ship's sheer staying power, by themselves they wouldn’t even pose a threat against her thick armour and heavy shielding, no threat short of ramming at least and after that running fight in the Solitas system they would have to take that seriously. Just under 800 brave men and women were about to sacrifice themselves and for what? For her? For a dead empire?

Weiss clenched her fists and beat the arms of her seat. Damn damn damn! She should just give the bastards what they want, turn herself over and save the lives of those crews, of the crew of the Darkwing. She let out a harsh breath, except it wouldn’t work, these crews had stayed loyal to their oaths and bidden defiance to the traitors and as such they were enemies of the revolution and their lives were forfeit.

The Captain lowered his headset and turned to look at her, his face the mask and eyes hard as he visibly clamped down on his emotions. “I am sorry your highness.” He said simply, the older man knowing the thoughts that hung black in her mind. Weiss merely returned his look with an icy one of her own, holding eye contact until he turned back to the holoplot. The nightmare view now showed the enemy ship pouring fire into one of the two cruisers, Diamond she thought. The ship held together an impressively long time spitting fire back at their pursuers but inevitably her shields failed and the ship came apart under the enemy’s hammer blows. Then it was her consorts turn.

Weiss tilted her head back and closed her eyes, more dead. More lost to the empty void of space or the fusion fires, in her name or the empires it didn’t matter, and all she could do was push onward. Or was it run away? Desperately trying to stay ahead of the pursuing traitors and revolutionaries who had bought her whole world crashing down who had killed-. No, there was no use going back there again. Inside she was torn, half of her was an empty void left by her dead family, her friends and those who sacrificed themselves in her name and the other was a raging inferno spitting fury at the unfairness of the galaxy, at their merciless enemy and at that bitch Salem.

An hour later with the drifting wreckage of a pair of light cruisers, the last testament to the bravery of those crews, behind them the ship staggered across the transition line and with a ragged flash of light and burst of tachyons she disappeared to the realm between universes. Inside the crew and their passenger breathed a sigh of relief. Two days to the next system and perhaps...safety.


	2. Chapter 2

_ 26th March 2438 _

_ Remnant sector _

_ Star kingdom of Vale _

_ Sumire System _

  
  


Flying Officer Ruby “Huntress” Rose brought her Comet on to a new heading, the aerospace fighter completing its smooth, almost lazy, arc through space coming into the next sector of her combat space patrol around HMS Beacon and her carrier group. Behind and to the side was her wingman, Flying Officer Jaune “Paladin” Arc, who matched her new heading with an equally lazy, if somewhat flashy, barrel roll. Shaking her head at his antics she wiggled slightly to relieve some of the numbness in her butt, seriously she wasn’t even halfway through the patrol and it was already going numb. Stupid military issue seats. 

“This is incredibly boring” Jaune groaned over the comm link. “Remind me why we are out here again?”

Ruby rolled her eyes before replying. “Oh I don’t know Paladin, how about protecting the colony or watching for refugees. Maybe even guarding against the Grimm”. Ruby snorted at her own reference to an ancient Atlesian legend about monsters in the dark, though she suspected they had cribbed it from somewhere else...like Earth. Well it wasn’t like anyone on Earth was ever going to complain about it. “Seriously though how can you complain about any chance to fly, sims don’t come close to the real thing!”.

“I joined to see action. You know blowing up the bad guys, high speed dog fighting” he punctuated this with another barrel roll, taking up station on her other wing “or rescuing the damsel in distress...that sort of thing. Not endlessly flying circles in open space burning fuel and deepening my imprint” Jaune grumbled.

“You signed up so you could use the uniform to pull girls and get a shop discount” Ruby deadpanned. “Seriously though I wasn’t joking, the carrier groups orders do basically have us out here on guard duty.”

“Yeah that's the official line” Jaune retorted “but more likely they sent us out here as some sort of trip wire”.

“A trip wire? You could do that with a pair of escorts or a cruiser without risking an entire carrier group” Ruby scoffed.

“Or a blocking force to blunt or delay an invasion, any invader can’t leave a force this size in their rear after all” Jaune continued ignoring her protest.

Ruby sighed truthfully no one really knew why the carrier group was out here. Not even the group's commander, Vice Admiral Qrow Branwen, really knew. As far as she could piece together from what she had overheard and what her uncle Qrow definitely hadn’t told her, was that this entire deployment was some sort of political compromise between the myriad factions in parliament. If she were right then...

Shaking her head again Ruby decided that speculating would get her nowhere, except maybe depressed. She kept her thoughts to herself and instead returned her focus to Jaune “A full battlegroup would make more sense for that.”

“You really think parliament would allow the admiralty to move one of our Battleships out of the home system?” Jaune asked sceptically. 

And not without merit she conceded, there were only three battleships in the royal space force, the most the Imperium had allowed them to have, and all of them had been stationed in the system of Vale or Mountain Glen for decades. They helped to keep the local populations feeling safe, or that was the official line at least, and even if parliament had been willing Ruby doubted one could be made ready for an interstellar trip in less than a month anyway, the Gods knew it had taken almost two weeks to get the Beacon ready to deploy and she spent most of her time patrolling the colony systems. Which was also entirely beside the point.

Ruby sighed again “face it Paladin either the admiralty is being straight with us-” Jaune's bark of laughter cracked across the comm link “or there is something we don’t know and if that's the case flying around in circles is infinitely more useful than watching you moon over whichever girl is currently the focus of your affections, because frankly you suck at it.”

Jaune gasped “My dearest Lady Huntress you wound me” He said in an over the top aristocratic accent before dropping it completely “Not of course that you're any better with women than I am.”

“It’s not that I'm as bad at it as you, it's that I don’t try with every cute looking girl within a lightyear” Ruby Huffed and glared at his fighter regretting her attempt to change the topic already “I will find the right girl first before making a complete fool of myself”

“The difference being?” Jaune asked and Ruby could just imagine the raised eyebrow, he could be a complete ass at times.

“The difference being, I can talk to a girl without them immediately rejecting me or coming off as a total creep!” Ruby shot back. “Now if you're done we have-” Ruby was cut off as her comm unit lit up with an incoming message from the Beacon.

“CSP flight three this is Beacon control do you copy?” The voice belonged to Lieutenant Velvet Scarlatina, assigned to HMS Beacons CIC, and currently coordinating the CSP.

“We copy Beacon control” Ruby responded switching to professional mode. Velvet was a friend, despite Jaune’s best efforts, but there was a time and a place for casualness and this wasn’t it.

“Long range Sensors have picked up an emergence signature at the transition line, coordinates attached. Beacon command has put all fighters on standby and set condition 2. You are to proceed to the emergence point immediately and investigate, our best guess is it's another refugee or asylum ship but the signature looks ragged so you may be called upon to undertake a visual damage survey”

“Copy that control. Handing off CSP and preparing to jump to attached coordinates, request ROE?” Ruby replied, transferring the coordinates to her nav comp and priming her jump drive.

“ROE remains the same, godspeed Huntress. Control out” So no shooting until or unless shot at then. Wonderful for all she knew it was an invasion force and they were about to fly straight into it, okay maybe she was being slightly over dramatic.

Ruby took a deep breath, pushing down the sudden butterflies, before speaking again. “You hear that Paladin, looks like you get to play the hero after all, match my vector and prepare to jump on my command.”

“Matching vector and drive primed, ready when you are” Jaune replied. 

As Jaune and Ruby’s fighters steadied out on their new vector Ruby reflected on the necessity. Sure they could just Jump and go but the jump drive just moved them from one point to the other, their velocity would remain unchanged leaving them heading in the wrong direction upon arrival. As such it was standard practice to ensure they were heading in roughly the right direction before jumping to save time and potentially lives on the other side. Gripping her control stick she began the countdown. Ready or not here we come. Two Aerospace fighters vanished in a twin flashes of red light.


End file.
